Tech Train

The Galaxy S22 has just been announced, and beyond the expected spec bumps one would be hard pressed to find a difference between it and last year’s S21. There has been a minor cosmetic refresh, but it amounts to less of a change than the S21 was from its own predecessor, the S20. The camera bump on both the S21 and S22 is the same shape, and there aren’t many new colors on offer either. Granted, companies can’t release a phone that’s a giant leap ahead every year, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try.

The phone ships with a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Processor and 8 gigabytes of RAM. This is marginally faster than the S21’s Snapdragon 888, but most users will notice no difference in day to day performance. The screen refreshes at the same 120 hertz as last year, and has the same resolution. It’s a very minor improvement.

Samsung used to be the company that threw wild concepts into their flagship phones. The S9 had a variable aperture on its camera, physical parts that would move to let in more or less light. The phone also had an iris scanner for easy authentication. It’s easy to say that the company still innovates, pointing to their folding phones, but that innovation used to be in everyone’s hands. Now it’s in the hands of people who can stomach the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s jaw-dropping $1,800 price.